Last night I went to my first carol concert of the year. And I can tell you now, I left feeling the most genuinely joyful that I have in 2016 so far.

It’s safe to say that when my fellow caroller and I arrived at Saint Stevens we were both pretty, ok thoroughly, depressed. Deadlines, cold to the bone from student-flat heating (or lack of…), tired, bored of the semester, missing family, missing home, missing dogs, missing summer, missing warmth, missing freedom. The list that fed our wallowing self-pity was never ending. Yet when we left the church, we couldn’t stop laughing, we couldn’t care less about our imminent deadlines, and we no longer needed central heating to keep ourselves warm.

On my walk home, such a turn-around of emotion got me thinking: why are we so much more stressed this year than last? We aren’t in an honours’ year, and we’re no longer living in the prison of student halls. Then I remembered: 2016 has been a true car-crash. As if I could forget… Our petty stresses were a reflection of the more general events of attrition that has led to the global population’s general sense-of-humour failure.

Every day we are reminded of the utter insanity that this year has consisted of. Let’s remind ourselves of a few examples, just for fun:

Today BBC breaking informed me that Thomas Mair is indeed guilty of -what I proudly previously thought of as being absurdly un-British- the killing Jo Cox MP. This cruel act occurred just a week before the unprecedentedly revolutionary *cough* outrageous *cough* Brexit vote. On top of these, for the whole year we’ve had running commentary of a head-to-head, evil-meets-evil, lose-lose situation, presidential election campaign. Such narcissistic displays of power play has sapped our limited positivity despite it not even being our own elections. We are now totally, and utterly, exhausted as a body-politic.

Syria meanwhile has been shaking things up more than ever, both through their ongoing, terrible suffering on the front lines, and through the refugee crisis. Not only are we exhausted but we are now knotted in an attempted mixture of genuine empathetic grief and charity.

Then we have the multitude of European terror attacks. France has been the focus of several attacks: Paris and Nice to name the biggest. This brings all the terror so much closer to home; we are now not only exhausted and trying desperately to be empathetic, but (often conflictingly so) we are also truly fearful of our own safety.

There have been fatal earthquakes in places such as Italy, and another massive hurricane in Haiti. And on top of all these political and natural disasters we have lost so many of our national treasures, our idols. We’ve genuinely grieved the loss of many of those figures who usually we rely on to comfort and entertain us when everything goes a bit tits-up, gets a bit serious and stressful (see above 3 paragraphs…). No more inspiration from Prince, no more dry wit from Wogan, the last of the Ronnies gone. We can’t even get angry at Alan Rickman for almost cheating on Emma Thompson anymore, without forgiving him and begging him to come back to us to say “Potter” one more time.

And as it’s the era of a social media orientated, globalised world our reactions are forever scrutinised. We care too much, but if we don’t express our care whole heartedly in public we are ignorant to our surroundings. We are cruel if we don’t “pray for Paris”, but when we do we are accused to not caring about civilians in Libya or Israel or Palestine. We are so tense and stressed and “concerned” that every move we make at this point seems to make everything worse.

Normally I am a true advocate for not starting the Christmas fun until December 1st. It just makes sense right? Starting in October like that one crazy aunt, or in August like the money-grabbing retailers, is simply madness that must be protested against. Why? In case we get *bored* of Christmas before actual Christmas, or as positive action against consumerism. But this year, I say screw convention, I have had enough of protesting. There is no way that singing jingle bells whilst dancing around a Christmas market in my ridiculous chunky knit is going to get boring this year.

We’ve been through enough. My pre-carol woes were a microcosm for social anxieties concerning the global economy, global diplomacy and quite frankly, at this rate, the fate of the human race. Yet forgetting all of my problems, the petty and the slightly more serious, did more good for me than being “concerned”, or “involved” or “trying to make a difference”. I may have spent most of today in bed, watching iPlayer and eating, but I’m happy and I’m calm and I’m ready to face my to-do list whilst retaining some sanity. Turning on radio 4 this morning I laughed at the sound of Trump’s voice, rather than shiver with disgust and fear. Wouldn’t 2016 look so much better if we could laugh at the absurdity of it all and celebrate the fact that it’s going to belong to the history books oh so soon? Wouldn’t we all make better, more rational decisions if May and Corbyn wore santa outfits, and their cabinets dressed as elves for a while? Ok, maybe that’s one fantasy to many, but the idea is still valid, no?

Christmas is about uniting. It’s about celebrating. We may no longer all give it the religious focus that it once had. And yes, most of us have a pretty grim 25th with dry turkey and wet relatives. But the festive season is there to lift the spirits. It’s the one time of the year where we can really, truly, take some time to sit back and appreciate the good, have a belly giggle, and have fun without worrying about having summer bods or tickets to the best festivals. All we need is family and some Christmas lights. How refreshingly simple.

So screw the December 1st rule. We’ve tried caring and being serious, it’s quite frankly not working. This year we need a double dose of “festive”, two layers of Christmas jumpers and two rounds of We Wish You A Merry Christmas. Now excuse me while I go to my local German Market and freeze my bum off on a merry-go-round, with some mulled wine in-tow.